


Spaces in Your Togetherness

by Saucery



Category: Teen Wolf (TV)
Genre: Alcohol Abuse/Alcoholism, Alternate Universe - Canon, Angst, Brother Feels, Brother/Brother Incest, Brotherhood, Brotherly Love, Brothers, Drama, Drunk Sex, Dysfunctional Family, Eavesdropping, Emotional Manipulation, Explicit Sexual Content, Family, Family Secrets, Incestuous feelings, Intimidation, Love Triangles, M/M, Possessive Behavior, Revenge Sex, Rivalry, Romance, Secret Relationship, Secrets, Seduction, Sibling Incest, Stiles Has a Brother, Underage Sex, Unrequited Love
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-01-15
Updated: 2013-01-20
Packaged: 2017-11-25 13:55:48
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 2
Words: 4,575
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/639571
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Saucery/pseuds/Saucery
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Stiles has an elder brother. A brother that doesn't approve of Derek Hale.</p>
            </blockquote>





	1. Chapter 1

**Author's Note:**

> Inspired by [this](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/post/40551620745/rigatona-saucefactory-perksofbeingahermit) post. Oh, Tumblr, the things you make me do.

* * *

 

Stiles is… different.

Josh is back home for his three-week vacation (for definitions of 'vacation' that include constant video-conferencing and electronic paperwork), and Stiles is just _different_.

Josh can't put his finger on what it is, at first. Something about the softening of Stiles's sullen adolescent coltishness, the maturing of his sarcasm - something that could just be a normal part of growing up, like the broadening of his shoulders, but Josh has a hunch that it isn't.

It's only when Josh walks in on Stiles changing and sees the chain of truly impressive hickeys lining his collarbones that he figures out what it is.

It's sex.

"Yo, little bro!" he exclaims, slapping Stiles on the shoulder so that Stiles almost stumbles, shocked and pale-faced, reaching to pull down his T-shirt, quickly. Trying to hide the hickeys? Why? "Hey, it's okay. You must have a wild girlfriend."

"Yeah, real vampy and crazy in the sack," Stiles replies, grinning, but it's a tight grin, not a _Stiles_ grin.

Josh narrows his eyes.

Stiles brushes past him and out the door, calling back, "You joining us for dinner, or what?"

Josh takes note of the open window, the billowing curtains, the fading scent of leather.

Something's not right, here. _Someone's_ not right. Someone that might've been in here, a couple minutes ago. Someone that isn't a typical teenage girlfriend, because a typical teenage girlfriend wouldn't be making Stiles act like this, like Stiles has a secret, and Stiles is good at keeping secrets, he genuinely is, but Josh is even better at picking up on Stiles's lies. He's the elder brother, after all. He knows everything about Stiles. Everything.

He's been gone for the better part of a year, though, and things have happened to Stiles to change him in that time, and Josh doesn't know everything about this new Stiles, but damn if he doesn't want to.

*

Stiles is clever, so he isn't going to get caught like that a second time. Josh knows that whoever was visiting Stiles isn't going to visit Stiles again until everyone else in the house is asleep, so Josh waits until after midnight. 

Then, he tiptoes down the hall to Stiles's room, and catches the first hint of sound - a moan, quickly stifled (with Stiles's own fist? The image that flashes through Josh's mind is far too vivid), and then a rustle, as of clothes being shed. (Stiles, his boxers sliding off of him, no, being _urged_ off of him, with a quiet slither, with a near-whisper, leaving Stiles hard and panting and - )

Josh goes back to his room. Jerks off. It's okay; he hasn't done anything to Stiles, not in all these years, and he isn't going to. He's just going to find out who the other guy is - because that had been a man's groan, not a girl's, not even a boy's - he's going to find out who it is, and he's going to get rid of them.

Stiles is too young for this. Josh should know. He's spent years thinking about how young Stiles is.

*

It doesn't take more than a glimpse of Derek Hale to figure out that he's the culprit.

Josh is heading down to the station to see his dad when he catches sight of Stiles in his Jeep, with Scott gesturing animatedly and a dark-haired, twenty-something man next to Stiles in the front passenger seat. The fact that this seat was always and only reserved for Scott - or for Josh - speaks volumes. The fact that the man is wearing leather (and Josh had caught a whiff of leather that night, hadn't he?) is a dead giveaway, as is the way he's watching Stiles, as though Stiles is something he needs to have, to keep, to tame, to _fuck_. 

That's not the way anybody should be looking at Josh's baby brother. Let alone an ex-convict and former murder suspect with the eyes of a serial killer, who Josh recognizes because of the mug-shots Dad still keeps in his office.

Stiles is having sex with Derek Hale.

This needs to stop.

*

He corners Derek Hale outside a convenience store on a Friday night, because he's been tailing him, and Derek is, apparently, so used to being tailed that he lets it happen. He's even waiting for Josh when Josh finds him, leaning up against the wall of the alley behind the store, dressed all in black like some kind of stubbled antihero from a dime-store romance novel, eyes gleaming oddly in the darkness.

"You know," is the first thing he says to Josh.

Josh just walks right up to him, grabs him by the lapels and _shoves_ him. "Yeah, I know your game, buddy. I know what you're up to. And you're going to keep your dirty paws off my baby brother, or I'm going to have you arrested for the statutory rape of a sixteen-year-old. Hell, I _still_ might."

"You do that," Derek says, calmly. "It won't work. Stiles won't testify."

"I will. You think they won't listen to a sheriff's son?"

"You think they won't listen to the sheriff's other son?" Derek doesn't shrug off Josh's grip; he simply tilts his head, studying him, nostrils flaring. "And I think you've got secrets of your own you don't want told."

"What secrets?" Josh's heart is thundering.

"That you want to fuck your 'baby brother'. That when you think of him being fucked by me, you want it to be you, instead. That you think of his mouth wrapped around you, bruised and wet - "

Josh slams him against the wall.

But Derek doesn't even pause. "You don't want me to have what you can't have. It's that simple, big brother."

"It's never that simple."

"It is. The moment I tell Stiles, he'll know it's the truth. That it's what you want from him. And you'll lose him. Forever."

"Why the hell would he believe _you_?"

"Because your desire's obvious to anyone with the eyes to see it, and Stiles is absolutely smart enough to have picked up on some of it, although he's denied what he senses, because _he's_ a good brother. Because he wants you in his life. He wants you around."

"Don't you dare act like he needs protecting from me when it's _you_ he needs protection from. I haven't touched him. Haven't - "

"Pressed a kiss to his mouth? Even when he was sleeping?"

Josh rears back. "You - "

"I've been keeping watch, too, _Josh_. You think you know what I'm doing; remember that I know the same of you." Now, Derek pushes off Josh's hands - too easily, with too much strength - and steps away from the wall. "Watch yourself, Stilinski. And keep out of my business. If you do, I'll keep out of yours."

"Stiles isn't your business. Stiles isn't your _anything_."

"He's mine," Derek growls, "not yours. For all that you've marked him with years of scent. He's _mine_."

"You're a fucking lunatic," Josh calls after him. "Scent? What are you, some kinda fetishist?" 

But then, Derek's gone, and Josh is left standing there, his pulse beating loudly in his ears, like a man that just escaped a firing squad.

*

Josh confronts Stiles about it on the weekend. Just tells Stiles they need to talk, and watches Stiles's face shut down, just that fast.

So Stiles knows what this is about, then.

Stiles always was the quick one, the perceptive one. But Stiles is making a huge mistake, letting a monster like Derek into his life, and Josh has to make him see that. He _has_ to, for his brother's sake, so he sits opposite Stiles on the edge of Stiles's bed and holds Stiles's wrist in his hand, slender-boned and strong, and runs a soothing thumb over the jut of it, again and again.

"It's not your mistake," Josh tells him, when Stiles has been silent too long. Stiles isn't meant to be silent; he's a songbird, and silence is unnatural on him. "He's the older one. He should know better. Maybe, if you wait, and try to date again when you're legal - " 

"And then what?" Stiles looks up at him, eyes dark pools of light, unfathomable and deep. "Will you approve of him then, Josh? Is that really what this is about?"

Josh freezes. "Listen," he says. "Whatever that liar - whatever Derek told you about me, it's not true. Okay?"

"He didn't have to tell me anything," says Stiles, rolling his eyes. "Jesus. You're both so - " He huffs, leans forward, and kisses Josh. On the mouth. Gently. So gently -

Josh quakes -

And Stiles sits back, an expression close to pity on his face. "You're terrified, aren't you? But relax. It's not your mistake. Maybe, if you wait, and try again when I'm no longer your brother - oh, wait. Desire doesn't work that way, does it?"

Stiles is crueler than he imagined. Sharper. What has Derek _done_ to the boy -

Stiles's mouth is so _soft -_

And he's kissing it again, thumb still stroking over Stiles's wrist even as he lets his tongue stroke Stiles's, as he feels himself grow flame-hot, insane, the heat eating away at his logic, the mossy slickness of Stiles's mouth something impossible to him, something sweet, driving him out of himself, driving him _mad_ - 

"And that's why we can't stop," Stiles gasps, pushing Josh away, finally, and Josh lets himself be pushed, for all that he wants to push back, wants to push Stiles onto his own bed and tongue-fuck his mouth, drag Stiles's T-shirt up to bare his happy-trail and bite him there, just under Stiles's navel, and then work his way up until he's licking those nipples, those stiff little nipples, with the moles under the one on the right that look like spatters of ink - "Derek and me, not - not you and me. Josh. Are you listening?"

Then, Josh notices it. Stiles is shaking. Has he -

Has he frightened Stiles -

No, Stiles _started_ this -

Stiles is sixteen and dating a fucking _madman_ -

With a brother for a madman -

Fuck. _Fuck_.

"I'm listening," he says, hoarsely, because Stiles knows it now, knew it before, but realizes it now, and there's nothing to be done about it, nothing he can do to take it back, and he perversely does not want to, even if it hurts Stiles to know how much Josh wants him, how much he - "I'm. I'm listening."

"Good." Stiles takes a shaky breath. "You can't - you can't stop. Wanting me. You can't just switch it off, even when you know you should - no, _listen_ \- and I can't, either. I can't stop wanting Derek. And I don't plan to. And you're not going to tell dad about it, or anyone else, or the next time, I'll climb into your bed at night and let you do to me what you want to do."

Josh blinks. "Are you - "

" - threatening you with the thing you want? That's the most frightening thing, though, isn't it? For you. For - for the both of us."

The both of them. "How long have you known?"

"Always." Stiles hitches a shoulder, looks away. "Almost always. Even when you were dating that girl - Marge - "

"You kept saying you couldn't believe I was dating a girl with a name from the _Simpsons_."

"I was jealous."

Jea - "Jealous?" Josh asks, numb.

"Yeah. I - I liked you back, I think? In that way. But we couldn't - and then you went _away_ , you were working, you were living your own life - "

"I thought about you _every day_ \- "

"And Derek was here, and we clicked, and then we fell in love, and - "

"It's not love." Josh can't believe he could've had Stiles, before. Could have broken him, for life, but could've _had_ him - "What he's doing to you, it's not love."

"And what you want to do to me is?"

Josh falls silent.

"Leave us alone, big brother. We'll be okay. All of us. I'll be okay. Derek will be okay. _You'll_ be okay. Just. Give us time, please?"

"Do you need me to... go?" Josh swallows, and it's his turn to look away. "Early? Thanksgiving's over, and my leave is almost up, anyway - "

"You don't have to - "

"I have to," and Josh glances up again, because he can't not look at Stiles, at how beautiful Stiles is, at how close Josh comes to fucking him, every time, how immeasurably close he is, right now. "I have to, Stiles. I can't - " he clears his throat - "I can't stay here."

Stiles just looks at him. And then, dully, he says: "Yeah."

"We'll be okay. You said so."

"Yeah."

And then, Josh tips Stiles's chin up and kisses him on the forehead, softly, like a brother should. "He'd better treat you right, Stiles," he says, feeling an ache and a wrench inside him, as though he's being torn open, but pulling away, nonetheless.

"Oh, he will, all right. Or you'll come after him with a shotgun."

"So will dad, when you _do_ tell him."

"I'll tell him when I'm eighteen."

"Good choice."

"I know. Otherwise, I'll have a dead boyfriend on my hands."

"I still feel like killing him, you know."

"You won't."

"I won't."

"For me."

"For you." Josh ruffles a hand through Stiles's hair, like he used to when Stiles was five, and stands. "I. I guess I'll go, then."

"Good luck," Stiles says, when Josh is at the door.

"You, too."

And Josh closes the door behind him. It feels like he's locking something away, in there, leaving it behind with Stiles. Like he'll walk with that hollowness within him, for the rest of his life.

The next day, he packs his bags and leaves. Tells dad he has to go back early, for work. Hugs Stiles, as he should. And then backs away.

He's a good elder brother. He's the brother dad always thought he was. That Stiles always needed him to be.

He's -

He's his brother's keeper.

Nothing more, nothing less.

 

* * *

**  
continued in the next chapter.**


	2. Chapter 2

* * *

 

He’s back for Christmas the next year when it happens. Josh has been careful with Stiles, so far - just saying hi to him on the phone, every now and then, deliberately not asking how Stiles’s relationship with Derek is going - and he’s managed to avoid coming home for everything but the most compulsory holidays, the holidays dad will forcefully drag him to by the scruff of his neck if he doesn’t drive down to Beacon Hills, himself.

But he knows, the moment he steps in the door, that Stiles isn’t himself. He’s different, again, but worse, something jagged in his smile, something hard and glittering in his eyes, some kernel of anger that sparks a paranoid flash of fear in Josh, that Stiles  _knows_  - knows that Josh still thinks about him, still jacks off to thoughts of fucking him, still corners fresh-faced boys in seedy alleys and pays them to suck him off, imagining Stiles on his knees, instead.

The sickness hasn’t left Josh. Clearly. But he’s gotten good at acting like it has.

So good, in fact, that he can hug Stiles upon his return and cup the nape of Stiles’s neck and make it look like the usual lingering hug an elder brother might give a younger, after a long time apart - make it look like a normal Stilinski hug, even, instead of what it is, an excuse to enjoy Stiles’s scent, subtly changed now that he’s grown, a man’s scent, not a boy’s.

Well. Almost a man’s scent.

Stiles is still seventeen, but he acts a lot older than that, acts even older than he had last year, and there’s a spark of knowledge in his eyes when Josh pulls away that, once again, makes Josh fear that he’s been caught.

But then that spark is gone, and they’re just ribbing at each other, like brothers do, and dad’s watching over them with a tolerant sort of exasperation before herding them to the kitchen and stuffing them full of roast turkey within an inch of their lives. They make a perfect family scene, a scene that would’ve been more perfect with Mom here, but -

They don’t talk about Mom. They never do. No one mentions the alcohol still stacked on that one shelf, either. It’s weird, or maybe it’s not, how years have passed, but they’re still mourning for her. How it’s always too soon to talk about her. Always.

In his moments of coldness, Josh sometimes wonders if he’d have turned out so fucked-up with a mom that would actually answer his questions, instead of a mostly-drunk cop dad that seemed all too glad to go out there and potentially get shot in the line of duty -

No. That’s harsh. Dad’s been a good father, considering. A good -

Just like Josh’s been a good brother.

Shit.

Crime doesn’t take a break on Christmas, and neither do the animals, apparently, because Dad ends up getting called to the station on some kind of weird case involving a bear-mauling and a rogue human archer. (What the hell is going on in Beacon Hills?) Stiles goes all quiet as soon as Dad’s gone, quiet and simmering, like there’s something going on under the surface.

“Hey,” Stiles says, when Josh eases an arm behind him on the couch. Josh freezes.

“Yeah?”

“You know how you said that Derek had better treat me right?”

“Yeah,” says Josh, slowly, eyes narrowing.

“He didn’t.” Stiles swallows. Jerkily. “He didn’t treat me right.”

Josh just sits there. His heart thuds faster and faster in his chest, blood pounding in his ears like war-drums. “You okay with me killing him?”

Stiles barks out a laugh, as though startled. “Nah. But I needed you to ask me that, I think.”

“I could describe in gory detail how I  _will_  kill him.”

“Thanks,” Stiles snorts, “but no thanks. Don’t - don’t say anything to him, all right?”

Josh growls. “Like hell I won’t.”

“Damn. You’re both more alike than you think, you know?”

“We’re not - ”

“Then again, maybe that’s why I went for him.”

The space around them jolts.

Like a wire shorting out. Heating up. Sizzling.

Josh realizes that he’s panting.

Stiles isn’t quite looking at him. “Fuck,” he says, running a hand over his face. “Didn’t mean to say that. Wanna get drunk?”

 _I don’t think we should be getting drunk_ , Josh doesn’t say, like he should be saying. He’s the elder brother. He knows Stiles is too young to drink. Too young for any of the things running through Josh’s head.

So, of course, Josh nods. And cards a hand through the short, soft hair Stiles is growing out. Just the right length for -

“Dad will kill us when he finds out,” Josh says, anyway, because there ought to be some visible attempt at sanity, from one of them.

But Stiles just looks him right in the eyes, and says: “Not if he doesn’t find out.”

Josh doesn’t breathe for a second. Stiles can’t be saying… can he? What  _is_  he saying?

Stiles slinks off the couch, oddly and unfamiliarly graceful, and gets a bottle from Dad’s shelf. Uncorks it. Climbs back onto the couch and presses the bottle to his lips, parting them around the rim, licking at it.

Josh stares.

Stiles offers Josh the bottle after he’s had a few sips.

Josh takes it, as if on automatic, and puts his mouth where Stiles’s had been, feels the remnant of Stiles’s warmth there, feels a shudder of desire flare through him, slow and heady, settling in his belly in a pulsating knot.

Stiles watches him drink, too, eyes strangely bright and heavy-lidded.

“You’re seducing me,” Josh says, disbelievingly, when Stiles reclaims the bottle from him and takes a drink, repeating the whole process again.

“Gee, y’think?” Stiles slurs, and sets the bottle aside, swaying until he’s leaning into Josh, his lips brushing Josh’s ear. Josh fists his hands on his knees, not daring to look at Stiles.

“You - you promised you wouldn’t - ”

“You never promised  _you_  wouldn’t.”

“Stiles. You’re drunk.”

“And you’re hard.” Stiles ghosts a palm over Josh’s crotch. “Whoops, is that my fault?”

Josh grabs Stiles’s hand. Stops it. He  _has_  to stop this -

He can’t. He -

He can’t stop this.

He lets Stiles’s hand go, and instead wraps his arm around Stiles’s waist, urging him closer.

Stiles slings a leg over Josh and straddles him. Fuck. Stiles is hard, too.

“You can’t say no to me, can you?” Stiles asks, his breath whiskey-warm against Josh’s mouth.

“I never could,” Josh acknowledges, dizzily.

“Not even when I wanted to play with your favorite toys.”

“No,” says Josh, as Stiles’s fingers unbutton his jeans.

“Not even when I wanted to try out your new bike, and you let me, and  _you_  were the one that got grounded.”

“Stiles - ”

“Such a bad big brother,” Stiles says, pausing for emphasis on the ‘big’, his clever fingers - when did they get so clever? - easing Josh’s erection out of his boxer-shorts. 

Josh gasps and  _arches_  -

“You’ll kiss me, won’t you? When I tell you to?”

Josh thrusts into Stiles’s fist. Helplessly. Stupidly -

“By the way? I’m telling you to.”

Josh groans and kisses him.

Just - hauls him close by that conveniently-longer hair and kisses him, open-mouthed and desperate, slick and obscene -

And he’s saying something, in-between the kisses, something heretical and mad -

“Your mouth. Wanna fuck your mouth,  _Christ_ , Stiles, always wanted to fuck that pretty little mouth - ”

Stiles moans, and he’s on his knees, just like that, just like any of the alley-boys but better, because this is the real thing, and he’s doing it so naturally, like he does this all the time for someone else, for -

For  _Derek_  -

Damn him -

“Whoa. What made that happen?” Stiles asks him, dark-eyed and hoarse, when Josh’s hips pump and his dick leaks pre-come.

“Just - thinking about - ”  _how to kill your boyfriend_ , he doesn’t say, even though it makes him viciously hard to think of it, to think of getting rid of him, of having Stiles to himself, all to himself, all the time, over the couch and in the kitchen, fucked open on the top bunk of their old bunk-bed -

Stiles chuckles, like he can hear all that - and maybe he can, Josh’s beautiful witch-boy, hands better than any enchantment where they bind him, tether him, start jacking him off -

“Your - ”

“Mouth, I remember,” Stiles says, and then it’s there, Stiles’s mouth, absolute as a fact, hot and sudden, silken and smooth, enveloping and wet, right and  _wrong_  -

And Josh is babbling, promising things, promising to fuck Stiles so good, to make him like it, to make him love it, to make him come all over himself with his wrists pinned to the bed and his ankles digging into Josh’s back -

And Stiles is jerking himself off, too, frantic and fierce, whining around Josh’s dick, slurping around it, taking it so deep -

Josh can’t stop fucking into that mouth, into that throat, even though he can see tears glimmering at the corners of Stiles’s eyes, even though he knows it’s too much -

It’s never too much -

Never, god, what is he doing, this is his little  _brother_  -

But it’s not his fault, it can’t be his fault, because Stiles has such a perfect mouth, such a perfect, perfect mouth -

Sloppy and loud, filthy and  _sweet_  -

God -

Save him - help him -

No -

 _Yes_ , and Josh is coming, one hand tangled in Stiles’s hair and the other punching the couch, but he still can’t close his eyes, still can’t look away, because Stiles is coming almost at the same time, gasping and choking on Josh’s come, his hips jerking into his own grip.

A flame of incandescent white eats away at the edges of Josh's vision, but Josh watches Stiles through all of it, through every judder, every too-sensitive wince - taking note that Stiles likes hurting himself that way, that Stiles likes it when it’s sore -

Did Derek  _teach_  him that -

“C’mere,” Josh says, his voice as rough as gravel, and he just yanks Stiles up and kisses him, relishes the taste of himself in Stiles’s mouth, then lifts Stiles even higher and bats Stiles’s hand away and licks it clean of Stiles’s come, and then laps at Stiles’s spent cock, as well, until Stiles shivers and mewls and folds sideways along the couch, pulling Josh down on top of him.

And Josh crawls up Stiles’s trembling body and goes back to kissing him, because he can’t  _not_  kiss Stiles, can’t not do it after a year of dreaming it, remembering it, taking it farther in his own mind than he’d ever dared to do in reality, until now, and even now, he’d only done it because Stiles wanted it, because Stiles had said -

Because -

_You’re both more alike than you think, you know?_

And -

_Maybe that’s why I went for him._

Josh had forgotten how cruel Stiles is. How cruel he can be, when he doesn’t get what he wants.

The question is, which one does Stiles want? Whose punishment is this? Not Stiles’s, please, god, not that -

“Stiles,” he says, finally, but all Stiles does is catch a glimpse of his face before pushing him away.

“No.”

“But we - ”

“No, I said. We don’t have to talk about this. Hell, it’s better if we don’t, wouldn’t you agree?” And the brittleness is back in Stiles’s tone, the jaggedness, the thing that’s been bothering Josh, all along.

It hits Josh more badly than he expected, makes him want to double over and throw up, the thought that he’s done this to Stiles, when Stiles had warned him, a year ago, warned him that if he ever did, it would be a punishment for the both of them, a -

“Wait, no, it’s not - ” Stiles huffs, leans in to kiss Josh again. “It’s not about you. God, that sounds bad, but I… it’s just… Derek seems to think it’s all right, you know? To just - seduce people, all the time, to seduce them into his pa - family.”

“His family,” Josh echoes. Is that what Stiles is doing? Seducing family? But then, Derek has no right to tell Josh anything, does he?

“It’s not like how it sounds, except for how it totally is.” Stiles shrugs. “I shouldn’t even be talking about it.”

“You’ve got to talk about it to  _someone_  - ”

“And who should I talk to about us?” Stiles doesn’t even glance at him before getting off the couch. “Forget it, Josh. I was - I liked that, okay? What we did. And I - I love you. You know that.”

 _I know that you used me_ , Josh thinks about saying, but doesn’t. “I love you, too.”

Stiles stands there, studying him for a long, inscrutable moment, before leaving. Heading upstairs to shower, given the clunking of the pipes that follows shortly.

Josh fixes himself up. Tries not to look like he fucked his brother’s mouth in front of the same ancient television they used to watch cartoons on when they were kids. Except that Stiles is still a kid. A screwed-up, broken-and-put-back-together-wrong kid. And maybe it’s Josh’s fault that Stiles is the way he is, and maybe it’s not. Maybe it’s everyone’s fault. Maybe it’s no one’s.

It’s damn lucky that Dad didn’t come back, while they were… while that was happening. That would’ve been the end of it, then, the end of everything.

Instead, the only things watching them are the shadows from beyond the windows, night-dark.

 

* * *

**  
fin.**

**Author's Note:**

> Like my writing? Check out [my blog](http://saucefactory.tumblr.com/)!
> 
> The title is from the following poem by Kahlil Gibran, quoted utterly out of context:
> 
> You were born together, and together you shall be forevermore.  
> You shall be together when the white wings of death scatter your days.  
> Ay, you shall be together even in the silent memory of God.  
> But let there be spaces in your togetherness,  
> And let the winds of the heavens dance between you. 
> 
> Love one another, but make not a bond of love:  
> Let it rather be a moving sea between the shores of your souls.  
> Fill each other's cup but drink not from one cup.  
> Give one another of your bread but eat not from the same loaf  
> Sing and dance together and be joyous, but let each one of you be alone,  
> Even as the strings of a lute are alone though they quiver with the same music. 
> 
> Give your hearts, but not into each other's keeping.  
> For only the hand of Life can contain your hearts.  
> And stand together yet not too near together:  
> For the pillars of the temple stand apart,  
> And the oak tree and the cypress grow not in each other's shadow.


End file.
